NHL draft updates

Holy crapy I'm writing a new entry! I've been busy enjoying summer so I haven't really had the motivation to sit down and write an entry but I'm making myself do it in light of some recent big news over the weekend. If you haven't already heard, Mr. Quiznos himself Billy Sweatt was drafted 38th by the Chicago Blackhawks in the second round of the draft. I still find it crazy how the NHL draft works, drafting young kids and then sending them off for 2-6 years to college or the minors. ESPN put it best in their headline "There wasn't any chest hair among the NHL draftees". Anyway, there was a fun article about Sweatt in the Gazette Saturday talking about his minimum wage job for the summer. I can't find it on the website because the search function sux on gazette.com (just like most of the rest of the site). Here's the rundown of the draft as a whole.

As far as the blog goes, I'm working on an actual website for all the content so that the links and vids and such can have their own pages. I'll still keep the blog for opinions and my rantings about hockey and then use the website for more formal things about the team and links to all the news releases around the WWW. If you guys have anything specific that you would like to see added, please let me know. As I've said before, blogs and websites work best as a 2-way conversation instead of some webmaster guessing what people care about! One thing of note, I apologize in advance if my coverage of the Tigers is a little weak the beginning of the season. Football season is what I live for so I will be following that more than anything, but I will make sure to give you all something to read weekly!

ESPN takes a look at the NCAA Tournament

A good look at what will be going on in the college hockey world the next few weeks

Calling all CC fans

Ok so I've been looking around for videos and pics from the games and have only really come up with my own (which I will be adding at some point later today). As I have said before, The Gazette has a section for photos but there are only a handfull and they are all out of date. Yet, the actual newpaper has a few good pics each weekend, but they don't make it onto the website. Also, the Gazette had a slowly updating article following the game last night, but they didn't update it after the middle of the 2nd period. I had my game results up just after the game ended and yet their didn't updat until long after I went to bed. Along those same lines, it's hard to find a live update of the game online. Besides the radio, there is the ESPN scoreboard but it's not live (but better than all others). Here's my proposition and I need everyone's help. I already started it last night, but let's politely (or maybe not so much if you are completely fed up) start petitioning the Gazette to better their coverage of the games. If they have photos in the paper and a section on the site, why not put the pics online??? They have them, use them!! If there is an article updating the game, why not have someone at The Gazette updating the score in a score board while the reporters are at the game??!! It's not too hard to put up a scoreboard on the website! I left a comment on the game update last night mentioning how slow they are and how much better they could be doing. Not one site really stands out in their coverage of college hockey, most take over a day to update from the night before. The Gazette has a chance to be the leader in this category. Let's email and comment them en masse and see if we can get a result!!!!!
Another possibility is a group of us could start another blog just for game nights. This would probably take quite a few people, one for pics (of both the game and fans), one to be writing the game story, one to be constantly updating a few at a computer about the score, penalties and shots. It sounds like a lot but it can be done. Something to think about over the summer!

Radio Link

So after some complaining and searching I finally found something to help me with the games. I found out that the team website does actually have a link for listening to the games live, and it works with all major audio players. I guess I didn't give the athletics site enough credit because it's been there all along. It's basically a link for 103.9 The Eagle which carries the games and coaces show, but it's a start. Now that I have found this, I want to see if I can get those broadcasts to be put onto itunes in a podcast format. There are a few schools that have their own channel so we could create one ourselves, it's free and simple. I also found out this weekend that ESPN does have a live-updating scoreboard of the games, you just have to hunt for it. Again, if anyone knows where to find video of the games (either highlights or the full game), let me know!

Help from others

Because college hockey is not exactly well covered (even ESPN.com doesn't have a direct link), I think it would be awesome to bring in other thoughts from teams across the country. I would love to turn on the TV friday and saturday nights and watch a college hockey game regularly and NOT on the premium ESPNU that only has them on occasion. Although my focus is just on CC, I ultimately would want all of the ideas to be used everywhere so that we can get college hockey to at least a fraction of what football has in terms of national exposure. If other schools (ie the strong Minnesota schools) have certain aspects that work well, I want to hear em so that we can get this thing going in the right direction. The NHL is working to correct it's image and create a strong brand from essentially scratch. Why can't the NCAA bring it's strong product out into the mainstream?!